1. Field of the Invention
The present application relates to electrical cable. More particularly, the present application relates to a packaging and dispenser for wire and cable, henceforth referred to as “cable”.
2. Description of Related Art
In the field of cable installation, such as power or signal cables, cable is typically pre-wound on a spool which is in turn set up on an axel, such as a broom handle or pipe, so it can rotate freely, as the cable is withdrawn from the spool during installation. For example with power cable, the spools unwind at the speed with which the installer is pulling the cable through the joist holes. Sometimes when the cable is pulled quickly, the spool continues to turn when the pull is done and the cable will jump off the spool and get tangled on the axel. See for example, prior art FIG. 1 showing such an arrangement.
Moreover, the spool may wander on the axel which further complicates installation. For example, the spool has to be placed more or less perpendicular to the pull or the cable will not de-reel smoothly. Thus, the installer has to continually intervene to fix the payoff and cable during the pull. If these interventions can be avoided, this will speed up the pulling of cables. Installers do not want complicated devices to load the cable into.
Alternatively, spool payoff stands can be purchased, but in principle, they behave no differently than spools on a broom handle. See for example, prior art FIG. 2 showing such a spool payoff stand.
In order to reduce packaging costs, there are separate manners for cable packaging where cables are simply coiled and packaged in shrink wrap with no central spool.
The setup that is used most often for shrink wrapped packages is to place cable from the opened shrink-wrap package onto a holder, which then is placed on the axel or onto a payoff device as shown in prior art FIG. 3. Because the diameter of typical shrink wrapped cable spools are bigger (e.g. to make the shrink wrap package more stable on the skid for shipping reasons), it spins more readily but continues to rotate after the installer stops pulling, then the cable jumps over the flange holder onto the axel, or on other occasions just unravels on the holder and cause tangles that are worse than the tangles from spools. Also, if the cable is pulled off with a sharp fleeting angle from such a device, the cable jumps off the holder more easily.
Another manner for handling non-spooled shrink wrapped cables is to use a device such as the one shown in Prior art FIG. 4, from U.S. Pat. No. 6,352,215. This device works essentially by allowing the installer to load the non-spooled cable onto an empty spool. However, such a device is difficult to load the cable onto, and thus is time consuming to operate. Additionally, such a device still suffers from the same over-rotation problem described above. Likewise, this device is complex and heavy and thus is expensive and difficult to maneuver on job sites.